When I go to the shaman I can’t breathe. She says I am full of foreign beings from my belly to my throat. She says she can feel my energy. She keeps burping.

My head is going to pop off. I am scared she will judge me. Her room is meant to make a person comfortable, 1000 crystals and a cat, but i am not responding to the good vibes or I am positioning myself against them as if they are reflective of a cosmic arbiter who knows I am a piece of shit.

The shaman and I find a bat, two rats and a shield-shaped being inside the walls of my sternum. She invokes the angel Michael to give them a boat to heaven.

The bat and the rats leave easily. They didn’t know they were inside me.

The shield-shaped being was passed down from my father’s family. He believes he is here to protect me. The shield-shaped being is trying to protect my soul orb, which is behind my ribcage and looks like snow. But no light can get in.

The shaman talks to the shield-shaped being in shield-language, which is English, to let him know I am not his home. He cries as he leaves my body.

Now I am vacant of beings.

The shaman says my core will not stay empty. She says that I will repopulate it with me.

When I leave the shaman I feel like I can breathe again. When I return to the people who love me I suffocate.

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